What look like pale yellow paint streaks slashing through a mosaic of mottled colors are ridges of wind-blown sand that make up Erg Iguidi, an area of ever-shifting sand dunes extending from Algeria into Mauritania in northwestern Africa.

Erg Iguidi is one of several Saharan ergs, or sand seas, where individual dunes often surpass 500 meters—nearly a third of a mile—in both width and height.